


Boundaries

by teyla



Category: Lie to Me (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:53:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teyla/pseuds/teyla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Proof is always better than trust. Or is it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boundaries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Topaz_Eyes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Topaz_Eyes/gifts).



> Beta'ed by earlwyn and Licia. Thank you!
> 
> For a spoilery trigger warning, please check the notes at the end of the fic.

_She was hiding something._

_Cal could see it, in the way she smiled without using her eyes, the way her shoulders twitched when she talked about her day, the way her answers would come just a tiny micro-second too soon._ You're home late. Long day at work? _—_ Yeah. Yes. We had a meeting, it took forever. __

_Just this tiny micro-second too soon._

_He tried not to notice. When that didn't work, he tried to explain it away. She was tired. She was lying about something else, something that wasn't any of his business. She wasn't lying at all, but nervous about him thinking she was. She wasn't lying and wasn't nervous and his job was making him see things that weren't there._

_But they_ were _there. Observation said they were, and science deduced that she was hiding something. She wasn't telling him something that she thought he had a right to know._

-###-

She was hiding something. Emily felt like she was _always_ hiding something, even though usually, she really didn't have a lot to hide. It was always so much trouble. Dad was hopeless, anyway, but even Mom spotted lies a mile off. It was probably something she'd picked up from Dad. Thanks, Dad.

This time, though, Emily was hiding something important. Something Dad couldn't under any circumstances find out. They had promised each other that they wouldn't let anyone know, and Emily was determined to do her part. She had stayed away from Dad, had found excuses not to be around him, but she was smart enough to know that to him, it was just another sign that she was hiding something.

So when Dad offered a 'family weekend'—just her and him, a bag of chips, and a stack of high-budget action movies—Emily found herself lacking a sound excuse to turn him down. His timing was spectacularly bad, as always. Her appointment was on Monday; she had already arranged it so she wouldn't be missed at school. The appointment would take care of things, and afterwards, it would be easier to conceal this from Dad—she wouldn't be straight-out lying anymore, she would just be keeping her private life to herself.

But she knew that part of the reason he was offering this was that he was getting the impression that she was avoiding him. He was putting his suspicion to a test, and Emily had no interest in confirming his hypothesis. Therefore, that Friday after school, she made her friend Jenna drop her off at Dad's office instead of going home. They'd stop by the Blockbuster place and pick up the movies together on their way home. Before she went into the office building, she took a deep breath and steeled her shoulders.

She'd managed to lie to him before. She could do it again. She would just have to act as normal as possible. If she did that, the weekend might actually end up being almost enjoyable.

-###-

_He tried to hide it. Cal had studied emotions for years; he should be able to hide his own. Emotions were tough bastards, though; that was something he had learned as well over the years. They wouldn't let you go half-way; if you were hiding them, you were hiding_ all _of them._

_He had married a smart woman. Despite his efforts, she knew, and things got tense. Him watching her watching him watching her; there was too much watching going on for any unguarded interaction. It was worst in the evenings, after Emily had been put to bed. Sitting and watching, waiting for the tell-tale signs, feeling a mixture of bitter satisfaction and something like despair when they did show._

_He still tried to ignore them. He still trusted her to make the first step, if a first step would become necessary. Love and trust, two emotions so closely connected and yet so detrimental to one another. The time he spent waiting for her to finally trust him again was the time when he realized that you couldn't have the one with the other and expect it to last._

-###-

". . . and the raised eyebrows suggest surprise. Now, that might lead us to believe that he is surprised by what we just told him, but in reality, it's something entirely different. If you pay very close attention to his eye movements just before he flashes us the wide eyes, you will notice that he's not looking at the interviewer when she asks the question. Instead, his eyes are— "

"Hey, Dad."

Her interruption earned her a room-full of glares that ranged from indignant to surprised. Dad was entirely the latter. "Oh, Emily, hi. Is it five o'clock yet?"

"Yes, Dad. Actually, it's five past." She could see him open his mouth to apologize and waved him off. "Never mind, it's cool. I'll go wait in your office."

He smiled at her. "I'll be right there."

She gave him a nod and wandered off, only too aware of the entire room watching her go. She hadn't provoked this situation on purpose, but she had every intention of using it to her advantage. Using his co-workers to make him feel guilty about working too much may not be entirely fair, but it helped her cause immensely. If he was feeling guilty, he would look for explanations for any weirdness between them in himself, not in her private life.

She went to his office and got started on her homework.

-###-

_Reason would suggest that if you knew someone very well, objectively observing their body language would become harder. It seemed reasonable to assume that in someone close to you, you would try to overlook all those little gestures, manipulators, twitches of the eyebrows that would suggest lies and half-truths._

_In fact, however, as Cal had spent years of his life proving, expression of emotion was universal. It looked the same in everyone. And once you knew what you were looking for, you couldn't overlook it. Not even in the people closest to you._

_When he eventually confronted her about it, things were already too tense for either of them to talk rationally. It was the first time they spoke about it face to face, but they'd had all these silent arguments; him probing, her avoiding, him pressing the issue, her shutting him out, all done with looks and gestures and casual remarks about trivial things. All the things they were saying now, they were simply repeats of what had already been said in silent conversation._

__Your job, your goddamn science. It's making you paranoid. __

 __Maybe it's not my job. Maybe it's you lying to me that's making me paranoid. __

 __It's your job. It's _always_ your job. Nothing in your life _isn't_ your job. __

_And her saying that to his face—it hurt, even though he could tell by the down-turned corners of her mouth that she didn't believe what she was saying._

_Lying. Lying again, just to hurt him. His job, his goddamn science. It wasn't helping him now._

-###-

"Hey, darling. Ready to leave?"

Emily looked up from the game of mahjong she was playing on the office Mac to see Dad leaning into the room, one hand on the door frame.

"I've been ready for the last one-and-a-half hours, Dad." She turned off the computer and grabbed her bag from under the desk. "I was waiting for _you_."

"Oh, I'm sorry." He waited for her to catch up, eyebrows raised. "What's the hurry? Do you need to be somewhere?"

"No," she said, her hands in her pockets as she was walking down the corridor beside him. "It's just courtesy, not to keep people waiting."

"Oh. Courtesy. Right." He nodded. "I'll remember that."

She gave him a bit of a smile and hit the button that would call the lift. "So, what were you working on? Another murder case?"

"Yes." Dad was looking straight at her, his face a mask of fake sincerity. "Grizzly bear ate five tourists at the zoo. He's claiming extenuating circumstances. I'm trying to determine whether he's telling the truth, and I can tell you, Grizzlies are _not_ easy to read."

Emily couldn't help laughing. "You're _such_ a dork."

There was a ping, announcing the elevator's arrival, and she got on, leaning against the back wall and leaving it to Dad to press the button. "You're gonna be working tomorrow?"

Emily was half-hoping for him to say yes—the less time she was spending in his company, the smaller the risk she'd run to give herself away—but he shook his head. "Nope. Case is solved, Grizzly's in prison. We've got the weekend. Is there something in particular you'd like to do?"

 _Yes, I'd like to not get found out._ "Hm, not really. I've got a lot of homework, and I promised Jenna I'd meet her on Saturday, so, y'know. Just the movie night's fine."

"Sure." He threw her a side-glance. "Sure, if that's what you'd like."

She smiled. First lie of the weekend, a success. Knock on wood, as they said.

-###-

_She was_ definitely _hiding something. Cal even knew what it was. He lowered his eyes to her long, elegant fingers that she was more or less draping around the Martini glass, and his eyes once again sought out the almost unnoticeable strip of pale skin that ran around the base of her right ring finger._

 __Dead giveaway, lady. Only a fool wouldn't know what you're up to. __

_But then, maybe she didn't care. He surely didn't. His own ring was in his wallet, just another piece of metal among many, and he'd been wearing it long enough to develop that particular tan line that you would only spot on cheaters._

_It was the first time he'd taken it off in five years. For the first few minutes, his right hand had felt naked, but the sensation had disappeared quickly enough._

_"You're Cal Lightman."_

_It wasn't really a question, so Cal didn't think it needed an answer. He sipped his own drink—not a Martini; as far as he was concerned, the only redeeming quality about Martinis was that they tasted better coming up than going down—and continued to watch her working through the argument she was having with herself. It was a little like watching a tennis match, only you didn't even have to turn your head back and forth._

_\- He's not so bad. Go get him!_

_\- I can't. I'm married._

_\- To a prat._

_\- Well . . . yes. Still married._

_\- You came here to get laid, didn't you?_

_\- Yes, but—_

_\- No buts. Go and get him._

_"I attended your panel." She was pushing a stray lock behind her ear and averting her eyes. People_ had _to stop giving away the game so easily. "In between lectures on forensic analyses of carpet fibers and PowerPoint presentations on the new detective shield design, yours was definitely one of the more interesting ones."_

_"Is that so?" He was still watching her. Sitting and watching, not giving himself away. Except of course he was. Playing hard to get, but signaling willingness on every level. The human body, an open book to anyone who bothered to read it._

_She smiled, looking at him through long lashes. "If I were lying, you would be able to tell, wouldn't you?"_

_He shrugged, not taking his eyes off her. "You're making small talk. Everybody lies when they're making small talk."_

_There she went, eyebrows going up, eyes widening—surprise; hastily covered up by faked confidence. "Everybody lies, huh? So why do we bother with small talk at all?"_

_His turn. Cal leaned forward on his elbows, put his glass down on the table and gave her a slight half-smile, never losing eye contact. "You know . . . I frequently wonder about that myself."_

_Not long after that, she got up and retired to her room, leaving a napkin with her room number on it on the table next to her empty Martini glass. Cal picked it up, contemplating it. He wasn't sure if he wanted to go to her. It had all been_ too _easy._

_In the end, he did go, though. Of course he did._

-###-

"Well, hurry up, please. I'd like to get home at some point tonight, if it's not too much trouble." Listening; then rolling his eyes in resigned annoyance. "Yes, I know it's Friday night. I'm inconsolable. I didn't make the lift stop on purpose, if it's any consolation."

" _Dad_ ," Emily hissed. "Stop making a fuss."

He ignored her, although she could see the corner of his mouth twitch. She rolled her eyes, but didn't say anything more.

"Thank you. No, I'll be here when you get here. I can't exactly go anywhere, you see." She gave him another exasperated look, and now he _was_ looking at her, a smirk playing about his lips. "Yes, yes. Thank you. See you then."

She watched him hang up and raised her eyebrows at him. "You are such an embarrassment."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Would you prefer being stuck in here until Mr. Maintenance finally bothers to stop watching the match and come get us out?"

"You don't know he was watching the match."

"Oh, I do." He nodded. She hated this smug nod of his. "I know he likes football, I know he's a fan of one of the teams playing, and I could hear his TV running in the background. In fact, every time the cheers from the TV got louder, his speech pattern indicated that—"

"All right!" Emily laughed and rolled her eyes again. "All right. I believe you. You're Sherlock Holmes."

"Hm, not quite." Dad tilted his head as if he were considering this. "I don't shoot holes into my fireplace."

Emily didn't have a response aside from rolling her eyes again, but that was getting a little old, so she just ignored him. "When is Mr. Maintenance going to show up, then?"

"Hm, half an hour? He's coming in from all the way across downtown." The smug, mischievous look disappeared from Dad's face, and he frowned. "I'm sorry about this. You'll have to put up with my company for a while."

She and Dad, locked into an elevator together, for half an hour? Emily thought a distraction was in order. She grinned at him. "We could play truth or dare." That should be safe. In her experience, calling someone out on a lie in truth or dare was a little like calling someone out on having passed wind during a business meeting. It just wasn't done.

"Truth or—" He laughed, sounding genuinely surprised. "Oh no, really. You don't want to do that with me."

"Oh, come on. I bet you haven't played truth or dare in, well—"

"Ages?" An amused smile was playing about his lips.

Emily shrugged to cover up her slight embarrassment. "Well, yes. I mean, you must've played it before, but—"

"Not in a long while." He slipped his hands into his pockets, still looking amused. "You're not wrong. But I don't think I should—"

"Oh, come on, Dad." Emily grinned. "I dare you."

-###-

_Now they were both hiding something._

_Actually, this took the tension out of the situation for a while. Cal was avoiding her, she was avoiding him, and they barely saw each other enough for any tension to develop or intensify. But that wasn't really a solution. It was postponing the inevitable._

_Cal thought that she was flashing him fewer ambiguous microexpressions, but after a while, he realized he'd just gotten used to it so much that he didn't notice anymore. When they were in a room together, there were three conversations going on at once—the one they were having verbally, about trivial things, small snipes hidden underneath layers of language. Then there was the one where he was accusing her of lying and she admitted everything except what she was lying about, and there was the one where she was quizzing him on whether he was actually quite the angel he was making himself out to be._

_Of course he wasn't. He wasn't an angel, but he was also not a liar. Except now, when he_ was _lying to his wife. And his years of training didn't make a difference; he couldn't hide it. Not from her. She could tell._

 _So it went, back and forth, tit for tat, and then, one night, when she was once again 'working late'—Cal was getting the feeling she didn't even really_ care _anymore; it was always the same day, always Thursday; did she think he wouldn't_ notice _—Cal decided to go out himself. His little 'mind reading' tricks had always worked well on women. The one he found that night wasn't as much of a looker as the last one, but beggars couldn't be choosers. It wasn't really about the women anyway._

_He did it three times before she cornered him. She came to his home office one night—his sanctuary, he almost thought, because that was what it had become over the last few months; the place he would go to hide from the world and his family—and she stood before his desk, her arms crossed in a gesture that screamed defensiveness, but that also carried something else. Disappointment, although Cal was trying not to see it._

_"You know, if you want a divorce, you could just come right out and_ say _so."_

_"Starting a sentence with "you know" is never a good way to indicate your—"_

_"Shut up!"_

_He did. He could see the anger on her face, in the way she was holding herself, in the way her arms were crossed tightly in front of her chest, and couldn't find it in himself to resent it._

_"Shut up, Cal. Shut up about your science and your speech pattern analyses and all your other horrendous bullshit. It doesn't mean anything to me, and it never will. If you want to go out and sleep with a different woman each week, feel free, but please do me the favor of divorcing me first."_

_Cal kept silent. Divorce, he'd never thought as far as that. He just wanted the lying to stop, wanted to cease feeling like every lie she'd ever told was written out on his wife's face. It didn't even matter what she was lying about; if it was important, or if she was merely simplifying matters out of convenience. Every untruth she told, he could see on her face, and he wanted it to_ stop _._

_But it would never stop. Of course it wouldn't. It was like the story about Pandora and her box. You let the truth out, you could never get it back in._

_"Okay," he said, nodding, sitting up, not looking at his wife. He didn't want to have to count the microexpressions on her face as she reacted to his response. "I'll call my lawyer tomorrow." A pause. "Do you want to talk to Emily, or shall I?"_

-###-

"Have you ever missed a lie that you should have caught?"

Dad raised his eyebrows at her question and pursed his lips. "Oh, yeah. Tons of times. Truth or dare?"

"You really don't have to ask every time, Dad. We're in an elevator. 'Dare' isn't really an option."

"Oh, I'm sure I could come up with _something_." He gave her a sly grin that reminded Emily that this was Dad she was dealing with. He _could_ probably come up with a dare for her to do in here. She decided she didn't want to find out.

"Next time, maybe. Truth."

They'd been playing for a while, and so far, it had gone fairly well. He had asked her about school, homework, 'Dick', and the parking violation ticket she'd gotten a while ago. She hadn't had to lie yet, and had to bend the truth a little only once or twice. She had asked him about Gillian, his new cop girlfriend, how much of his book he _really_ still had to write, and about the scratch in the paint on the front door of the car that he had blamed her for but that she _knew_ couldn't have been her fault. She was fairly sure that she hadn't gotten a straight answer to any of her questions, but that wasn't the point. The point was that she thought she might be able to get through this without giving herself away.

"Truth." Dad eyed her from where he was sitting against the elevator wall across from her, his forearms resting on his knees, his fingers loosely intertwined. Emily shifted a bit. Dad tilted his head. "How about you tell me that thing that you're so desperate for me not to find out?"

Emily froze. As she felt herself doing so, she immediately realized that freezing in response to a question like that was a dead give-away. She forced herself to complete her shifting movement, praying against better knowledge that Dad hadn't noticed that slight hitch. So much for not giving herself away.

"What do you mean?"

He just looked at her, doing that patient-Dad thing—but she wasn't going to fall for that. She wasn't fifteen anymore. So she simply stared back, not breaking eye-contact. He knew already; all she could do now was try to get him to drop it. She had a right to a private life, even if her Dad was a walking lie detector.

Eventually, he looked away and sighed. "Emily, I hate to do this. I've got this rule with Gillian, and the rest of the team. Boundaries, you know? I spot a lie, it's none of my business. I don't pry."

"Yeah, right." She hadn't meant to interrupt him, but if he was going to lecture her, she'd like him to at least try to cut the bullshit.

He shrugged. "I only pry when I think it's my business. Do you know how many lies I spot every day? I let most of them pass without saying a word, believe it or not."

"Well." She felt herself getting defensive and forced her shoulders to relax. "How about you let this one pass?"

"But I think it's my business. If it weren't, you wouldn't be trying so hard not to let me see it."

"It's none of your business." A blatant lie, and she knew Dad could see it. She raised a hand to scratch at the back of her neck; then quickly stopped. Don't fidget.

Dad was still looking at her. "I'll make you a deal. You tell me with a straight face that you think this secret of yours is none of my business, and I stop prying. How's that?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. Sometimes, she couldn't help hating him. "It's _unfair_."

"No." He shook his head. "No, unfair is you not telling me something even _you_ think I should know."

Try as she might, she couldn't fault that logic. She should tell him; she knew she should. He'd never really given her a reason _not_ to tell him, except the fact that his job, his science, his stupid lie detector skills, didn't leave her a choice. It wasn't a question of telling or not telling, it was a question of him letting her lie of omission pass or not. He never had to trust her, while she _always_ had to trust him. It seemed to belie the idea of what a parent-child relationship should be. That's why she hadn't wanted to tell him.

But what she wanted was irrelevant now. Since Dad had decided that he didn't want to trust her, and if she were to turn down his request to tell him, she would be implying that she didn't trust him. And she didn't get to make that choice.

She pulled her backpack closer to unzip the front pocket and pulled out a white, narrow stick about the size of a ballpoint pen. She hesitated; then met Dad's eyes and tossed it to him. He caught it between his palms and lowered his gaze to inspect it.

It was a pregnancy test. From where she was sitting, Emily couldn't see the two narrow red lines indicating a positive, but she'd spent enough time incredulously staring at them to know they were there.

-###-

_If you wanted to hide feelings of resentment and anger, divorce lawyers' offices were not the place to do it. They all seemed to get their interior design advice from the same agency— identical shades of pale, egg-shell yellow on the walls, the same dark brown, slightly-worn-down leather sofas in the waiting areas, the same fake-mahogany-colored tables and chairs in the consultation rooms. The design did everything except make you feel capable of controlling your feelings of resentment. Cal supposed that was the point. People who were getting a divorce rarely felt they needed to hide their resentment any longer._

_"It all seems very straightforward," said the young lawyer sitting across from Cal on the other side of the fake mahogany table. He looked up, and a couple of strands of his hair flopped into his eyes. Cal was sure that the man's hair got him a lot of female attention. He was also sure, judging by the careful way the hair was groomed and arranged, that the young lawyer knew that. "If your interest is in keeping expenses as low as possible, we could keep this as an advice-only session to clear up the one or two sticky points, and you could work the rest out on your own."_

_"No." The reply was flat, decisive; enough so that Cal threw his wife a side-glance. His wife. His ex-wife? Was she already his ex-wife, even though the divorce wasn't yet finalized? "Cost is not an issue. We prefer having a mediator."_

_The young lawyer's eyes flicked over to Cal, and Cal bowed his head in agreement. They preferred having a mediator. The truth was, his_ wife _preferred having a mediator. Cal didn't need a mediator. Mediators were there to ensure nobody's trust got broken, but Cal had ceased to trust anyone a long time ago. He didn't need to trust anyone. It was easy enough to know the truth just by looking at people._

_This was why she wanted a mediator. Because she still trusted. Cal thought it was a fair enough demand._

-###-

"Well, then you'd better _make_ time to see her. I don't care how short-notice this is; you're a private practice, and I'm a paying, valued customer."

" _Dad._ " Emily shot him a sideways glare that went ignored.

They were in the car. Mr. Maintenance had finally showed up, but instead of harassing him about football, as he would have done under normal circumstances, Dad had barely spared the man a glance. Emily had given him a grateful nod as Dad had ushered her out of the elevator towards the parking lot. She had started to feel very uncomfortable locked in that tiny box with only her reproachful, shocked and disappointed father for company.

Now they were on their way into central DC, heading towards Dr. Baker's practice. Dr. Baker had been the family's doctor ever since Emily could remember, and going to _him_ to get her official test done was a frankly terrifying idea. Dad had insisted, though. Or actually he hadn't. He simply hadn't asked her. The ball of resentment at the pit of her stomach tightened as she listened to him berate Dr. Baker's receptionist over the car's hands-free kit.

"No, today. Did I not say today? I am very sure I said today. And when I said today, I _meant_ today, not tomorrow."

Emily heard the woman at the other end of the phone line suppress a sigh, and shifted in her seat. "Dad, I'm taking care of things. I have an appointment at the hospital on Monday. I'm sure this can wait till then."

"I agree with your daughter, sir," said the receptionist's voice from the speaker. Emily remembered that since she was sitting right next to Dad, her voice was probably being picked up by his microphone. She hadn't thought about that. She kept her eyes firmly on the dashboard as Dad turned his head to shoot her a glare.

"That's nice. Neither my daughter nor you are medical professionals, though, are you? I know my daughter isn't. How about you, are you a medical professional?"

He was pushing it too far. His tone, the tension in his posture, the way his knuckles were turning white as he was gripping the steering wheel—he had no right to get so angry. This was why she hadn't wanted to tell him; why she _still_ thought that not telling him would have been a better idea. But he hadn't given her a choice. Just like she knew he was going to get this appointment, _today_. Because he wasn't giving the receptionist a choice.

Emily leaned forward to pull her backpack from under her feet up into her lap. She sat silently, listening to the receptionist launching one last futile attempt to convince Dad that Dr. Baker's schedule was full today, while keeping her eyes on the road. They stopped at three unsuitable red lights before they finally pulled up to one that seemed convenient—the sidewalk right next to her door, and a metro station no further than fifty feet away down the road.

He hadn't locked her door. Emily was sure that he would have, had he known what she was going to do, but he hadn't. So when she opened the door once the car had come to a stop, grabbed her backpack and made a run for it, it came as a complete surprise to him.

 _Sorry to rain on your parade, Dad_ , she thought as she hurried down the street towards the metro station, ignoring his shouts and then, a couple of moments later, her cell phone starting to vibrate in her pocket. _You weren't leaving me a choice._

-###-

_It was surprising how much of their mutual history was hiding away in their various possessions. Things they'd bought together, picked out together, been given as a gift with no specification who_ exactly _it was for. They had been a couple. You didn't give gifts to only one half of a couple._

_'Had been' was the operative phrase, though, so now they were picking through everything, trying to decide who would get to keep what. Sure, the big things they had decided on in the lawyer's office, but the young man with the deliberately unruly hair of course hadn't included any of the small things when he had drafted the divorce contract. Who would get the blue mug with the chipped edge that they both liked because it was big and held just the right amount of coffee for an early morning start? Who would get the silly, yet strangely elegant giraffe-shaped clock that used to hang on the foyer wall? Who would get the collection of Emily's kindergarten drawings?_

_It took them three days to sort through all their belongings, and it took her another two to get her half moved to her new place. At the end of the week, Cal found himself face to face with his ex-wife—now she_ was _his ex-wife, no doubts about it—in the foyer of what used to be their house and was now his house. The clock was gone from the wall._

_"Well."_

_He could have written a book about the subtext she was communicating with this one single syllable. Instead, he slipped his hands in his jeans pockets and rocked back on his heels, once. "Well. Thanks for the ride, I guess."_

_"Shut up, Cal."_

_No hostility. Just tiredness—and what he_ thought _might be resigned fondness, but he wasn't going to trust that observation. Doing so would have been bad science. He was far too involved with the subject of the case study. "Yeah." He lowered his eyes and inspected his toes. "I guess I'll see you around?"_

_"I guess so. Maybe. Not for the first while."_

_"Yeah." He nodded. "Probably a good idea." A pause. "I'll pick Emily up next weekend."_

_She nodded as well. The silence stretched for a few moments, and Cal was about to turn away—no reason to stand here and be awkward; there was still a silent conversation going on, but nothing was being said that they hadn't said to one another a million times before—when she spoke up after all. "Good luck, Cal. I hope you'll find someone you can trust."_

_He hesitated; then nodded and walked away into the kitchen, not looking back at her. He thought it better not to. Bad science or not, he was afraid of what he knew he would see in her face._

-###-

Emily called him on Monday, immediately after she came home from the hospital. He picked up on the second ring.

"Emily."

She didn't have to be a member of the Lightman Group to be able to hear the tense question in his tone. She let herself drop onto her friend Jenna's sofa and toed off her shoes.

"Hey, Dad. I'm not pregnant."

The silence at the other end of the line went on long enough for her to get a little worried. She could hear him breathing, though, so she waited it out. Eventually, he spoke up.

"The test said you were."

"False positive." She wiggled her right big toe into her left sock and pushed it off as well. "Doesn't happen often. Doc said only three percent of cases. Lucky, huh?"

This time, the silence went on even longer. Long enough for Emily to rid herself of her other sock and wave and give a thumbs-up to Jenna, who had come into the room to inquire how it had gone. Jenna grinned and returned the thumbs-up before she retreated. Jenna was a great friend.

Finally, she could hear Dad take a breath and set out to speak. Emily bit her lip, suddenly nervous. She knew what the next logical question for him to ask was. Did you get an abortion, Emily? Did you secretly terminate your pregnancy and are now lying about a false positive? She knew he had thought of it. The stretch of silence that had passed just now had been a clear indication. She held her breath and waited.

"Yeah, lucky. Did they say what caused the false positive?"

She slowly exhaled. He was stalling. Good. "I don't think they can tell. They said it happens sometimes when you get soap or detergent on the test." They had said no such thing, but she had looked it up on the Internet. "Or when the, you know. The urine evaporates and leaves a line. That's not really a positive, but it looks like one."

Dad paused for a few moments. When he spoke, his tone was almost pleading. "Emily . . ."

She closed her eyes in resignation. It had sounded rehearsed. She had tried to make it sound casual, but listing a memorized set of facts casually was difficult. And now Dad knew without a doubt that she was lying to him. Emily licked her suddenly dry lips.

"Can you come pick me up, Dad? I'm with Jenna."

"Emily, I know that—"

"Dad," she interrupted him, her tone not sharp, but decisive. There was a lump in her throat. She hoped against better knowledge that he couldn't hear it in her voice. "Please just come pick me up?"

A pause. "Okay," he said then. He didn't sound like Dad at all—no sarcasm, no acerbic undertone. Just that one word, admitting surrender. "I'll see you in twenty."

"See you, Dad."

She waited for him to hang up and then just sat there on the couch for a while, looking down at her phone. She'd never before heard Dad use that tone—except with Mom. There had been one or two times when he had used it with Mom, and they had always preceded long stretches of the two of them avoiding each other entirely.

She leaned down and picked up her bag to pull out a thin medical file. It held two sheets of paper, both black-and-white Xerox copies. One of them was a lab report on a pregnancy test. It listed a lot of medical-sounding numbers and terms, and a single word at the top: positive.

The other sheet was a consent form. 'Pre-operative consent form for medical abortion' was the thick, bolded headline at the top of the page. It was followed by several paragraphs of legalese—Emily had read them and understood them; she may be young, but she wasn't stupid—and at the bottom, there was her signature. Emily Lightman.

It had been her choice. She wasn't a child anymore; they had accepted her signature, which was proof enough for her. She had been _right_ , and Dad had been wrong. It didn't matter that she didn't feel like she was right. She didn't need to trust her feelings on this. She had written proof. Proof was always better than trust.

That was something she knew Dad would agree with.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning: This fic deals with abortion in a non-graphic manner.


End file.
